With these strict austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Union (EU), Ireland's federal deficit will decline from 32 percent of GDP to only 3 percent in four years time.  The United States government should take note of these figures and try to learn something.

Getting down to those spending levels will be a painful process, as some $20 billion will cut from the budget. Among the programs taking it on the chin are healthcare and education, which will see huge reductions.  In addition, the extremely generous social welfare budget will by reduced by 15%.  If you ask me, they should leave education and healthcare alone and take a sledgehammer to the bloated social programs..

The other piece is the massive increase in taxes.  The low, corporate tax rate will be unaffected, but the IMF is forcing Ireland to impose higher taxes on areas such as low-income earners and residential properties.

This causes a major flaw in the IMF's reasoning and why their tough-love loans don't always work  Their projections assume modest growth in GDP, but it's very difficult to grow an economy when you're raising taxes and laying off tens of thousands of employees.  Spending cuts are better for the long-term health of their system, but higher taxes are never a good thing.  The less money available in the private sector, the less likely Ireland is to grow.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - 7:30pm

Korean War II?

South Korea's government is threatening full-scale retaliation after North Korea reportedly fired dozens of artillery rounds at Yeonpyeong Island, which is in South Korea.  The bombing killed two soldiers and injured eighteen others.  South Korea returned fire after the attack, but it's unknown how many casualties it caused. North Korea claimed the South was firing shells in the area and provoked the exchange.  The clash is the most serious escalation of violence since the two nations came to a truce in 1953.

Most analysts see this as an attempt by the North to resume negotiations and/or receive food aid, which has been denied by economic sanctions.  Unfortunately, their violent actions will likely cause tighter controls from the South Koreans, the United States, and other countries.

The six-party talks that North Korea wants to resume to halt their nuke program are a joke. Let's not kid ourselves.  The North has no intention of giving up their nuclear ambitions.  American diplomats have been trying for years to get the communist nation to stop and they always fail.  Sure, the leaders in Pyongyang will tell us they've halted production, but we know they're lying.  It's the only chip they believe they hold.

North Korea needs to be punished for this provocation.  A full-scale retaliation is not the answer, but further sanctions need to be enacted.  The last thing the South should do is resume nuclear talks.  The North needs to understand that the more violence they inflict, the less they will receive.  If they can somehow behave for a few years, then we can talk to them about lifting the sanctions.

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Monday, November 22, 2010 - 7:00pm

TSA Employees Upset Too

Flying this Thanksgiving is going to be so much fun.  Now that the mainstream media has blown the TSA pat-downs completely out of proportion, the transportation security officers are being verbally and physically abused by unruly and hostile travelers.  One security officer was punched at an airport in Indianapolis, while others are being called pedophiles, perverts, and child molesters.

All of this goes back to our aggressive government and the braindead media.  If the clowns in Washington that run the Transportation Security Administration used some common sense, this situation could've been averted.  Also, if the media didn't exploit these incidents with wall-to-wall coverage in order to squeeze out higher ratings, they wouldn't have fired up the whole country.

The solution is obviously a less-invasive pat-down, but that could've been solved without all this crazy furor. It's not that hard to train your security team correctly.  I've been patted down hundreds of times going into concerts, football games, etc. and have never had a problem.

In the whole scheme of things, this is a minor and easily correctable problem.  Fix it and move on.

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Sunday, November 21, 2010 - 8:40pm

Ireland Gets Bailed Out

Lets you think bailouts are just for reckless American companies, now we have one for the irresponsible nation of Ireland.  After weeks of speculation, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen finally conceded that a rescue package was needed from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.  The EU has approved the request that is reportedly approaching $125 billion over a period of three years.

Much like U.S. financials, the Irish banking companies dug themselves a hole they couldn't get out of on their own.  Easy lending was the name of the game.  In addition, their government created massive deficits that could no longer be sustained.  Sound familiar?  With their cost of borrowing spiking higher via interest rates in the bond market, they were left with no choice but plea for help from someone with much deeper pockets.

The United States is fortunate they can go out back and print trillions of dollars in new paper money.  Ireland does not have that advantage as their fate is tied to the euro, a currency they do not control.  Portugal and Spain are in similar predicaments as they have also run up enormous deficits and may need assistance.

The failure of Ireland and Greece before them should serve as a harsh reminder to policymakers in America that they can't continue down the same dead-end fiscal path.  Running a $1.3+ trillion deficit every year will only lead the United States into bankruptcy.  If changes aren't made soon, we will suffer the same fate as Ireland.  I'd estimate a 5-7 year time-frame before the U.S. needs to go hat in hand to the IMF and beg for money.  Any chance Washington politicians wise-up before this occurs???

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Sunday, November 21, 2010 - 5:58pm

Quantitative Easing Explained

I came across this great video on YouTube this afternoon that fully explains what the Federal Reserve is doing and how they are robbing the American people blind.  It's an eye-opening conversation that's mostly accurate.  They do exaggerate a few times, but you'll get the idea.

The Goldman Sachs is not the only bank that makes out in this deal, but they are the kingpin.  Bernanke and his Fed cronies have set it up so that all the major financial institutions come out smelling roses.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010 - 1:30pm

Bernanke Rebuts Detractors

Facing a barrage of criticism over his decision to print money and buy Treasury bonds, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke fired back against those questioning his actions.  He argued that the $600 billion infusion will help the economy grow and reduce the nation's unemployment rate.  This growth will, in turn, help the global recovery since the United States contributes about 15% to the worldwide economy.

Bernanke spoke at the European Central Bank in Germany with the euro as a backdrop, an ironic sight considering his choice will increase the strength of the euro by devaluing the U.S. dollar.  He argued that he was not supporting a weak dollar policy, although his actions clearly have that effect.  A weak dollar will help American trade by making it less expensive for them to export.

While the Fed Chairman believes he's making the right call at this point in time, the economy would be better off if these government agencies stayed out of it.  Bernanke and past Fed leaders have been manipulating markets for decades and have generally made bad situations worse and have created problems when there were none.  I could argue that by making money extremely inexpensive in the past by lowering interest rates, they contributed to the over-inflated housing market.

The Fed is essentially trying to fix a problem they helped create, but in doing so they are building another bubble.  Interest rates are artificially low, both on the short and long-end.  The housing market is in much worse condition than we see today.  However, with 30-year mortgage rates at 4.5%, the cost of borrowing is very cheap.  By purchasing bonds with newly created cash, Bernanke is able to keep rates down.  As a result, people are able to afford a larger house at an (inflated) higher price.

A better alternative would be to allow market forces determine the level of interest rates and keep meddling government officials out of the mix.  History tells us that beaurocrats getting involved is never a good solution.

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Friday, November 19, 2010 - 10:35pm

Give Me That TSA Pat-Down

I don't understand why so many people are complaining about choosing between a full-body scan and a pat-down from your friendly, neighborhood TSA employee.  I don't know about you, but I'd like to be as safe as possible when flying the friendly skies (btw, I despise flying).  Is it really that difficult to take a few seconds and walk through a body scanner?  If, for some inexplicable reason you have an issue with the nudie scan, a body search from some random TSA guy or gal is not really a big deal.  I really don't think they want to touch your junk any more than you do.

The solution is really simple.  If you don't want a scan or an enticing grope, don't get on an airplane.  It's a infinitely small price to pay to ensure a degree of safety at 40,000 feet.  When you have terrorists stuffing explosives in their shoes, underwear, and any other crevice imaginable, it's not that unreasonable to have security check your physical body for potential problems.

I'm all for freedom and privacy, but let's get real people.  Americans are targets and our enemies continue to focus on airplanes as the method of choice to inflict damage upon us.

Think of it this way.  Would you rather have someone briefly touch your ta-tas or your third leg or would you rather plummet to your death when a bomb blows a hole in your plane?  As for me, I'll take a little grope every now and then.  It definitely beats the alternative.

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Thursday, November 18, 2010 - 6:08pm

GM Still Owes Taxpayers

After getting bailed out by American taxpayers, General Motors' (GM) new stock debuted this morning with their initial public offering at $33 per share.  The revamped company raised an amazing $20 billion, a record figure for an IPO on the first day of trading.  GM was only forecasted to generate $13 billion, so the extra boost brought smiles all around Detroit and the Obama administration.

Unfortunately, we the people gave General Motors $50 billion in bailout money.  The company has paid a portion of those funds back and will pay an additional $11.8 billion with this stock sale, but they still haven't even paid half their bill.  Their balance remaining is about $27 billion and it's unclear if we'll ever get it back

The government will own 33% of the new company after today, which means the stock price will need to increase a staggering 65% for the taxpayer to just break even.  That also assumes the government doesn't sell any shares until that threshold is reached.  If they do, the price would need to rise even more.

President Obama, General Motors CEO Dan Akerson, and the evil UAW have been all over the television today extolling the virtues of the car company and the government bailout.  However, they won't mention how much money the government has lost on this deal.  They also won't tell you that auto companies were bailed out because the Democratic party is owned by unions and will do anything to please them.  There was no reason to bail out a car company when other firms in different industries are allowed to go bankrupt.

The media will spin this as a successful bailout, but the truth is that GM should've filed bankruptcy.  The laws on bankruptcy exist for a reason; they allow a firm to restructure their business and survive.  It lets them break contracts and get out of debt with creditors.  There was no need for any government funds to be used.

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Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - 6:08pm

Alaska Senate Race Called

With only 700 votes left to count and a 10,000 ballot advantage, the Associated Press has called the Alaska Senate election to Lisa Murkowski.  The write-in candidate and quasi-Republican defeated her opponent Joe Miller, the conservative, tea-party nutjob after losing to him for the GOP nomination.  Miller has yet to concede the race to Murkowski, despite the fact that his camp is only opposing only 8,153 ballots.

Miller is apparently bad at math, which is disappointing considering he's a Yale guy.  Even if all the remaining uncounted votes and every opposed ballot moves to his favor, he would still lose the election.  He is now expected to demand a recount.

Senator Murkowski's victory was the first for a write-in candidate in the Senate since Strom Thurmond won back in 1954.  However, her triumph will not change the Senate dynamic as she her intention is to continue as a Republican.

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Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - 8:35pm

Earmarks Only the Beginning

Senate Republicans are finally coming around to President Obama's way of thinking.  A central theme to Barack Obama's presidential campaign was the removal of earmarks, otherwise known as pork-barrel spending projects.  Tea-party conservatives actually agreed with the president and have now convinced Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Senate Minority Leader to take up the cause.

While opponents will tell you that earmarks represent less than 1% of the federal budget, they fail to mention that the budget is a staggering $3.5 trillion and these needless pet projects still account for billions upon billions of dollars.  The government needs to cut spending somewhere and this is a good start.

Getting rid of earmarks is the easy part.  Federal spending needs to come down, especially after realizing that our government takes in only about $2.1 trillion per year.  After these clowns eliminate the pork, they can tackle all the military expenditures (I'd call it National Defense, but who are we kidding).  Nearly sixty percent of discretionary spending is devoted to our armed services.  That includes funds for invading countries, building unmanned drones, creating bigger bombs, etc.  Perhaps if the United States was less focused on ruling the world, they may be able to get spending under control.

Beyond earmarks and military expenses, the next place to look for significant reductions is Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.  We can start by raising the retirement age and privatizing Social Security.  For the naysayers who think privatization is some dark, evil option, I would implore you to take an investments class and do some homework before castigating a legitimate solution.

As for Medicare/Medicaid, the situation is much trickier.  Costs are expected to skyrocket over the next ten years due to an increase in costs per beneficiary.  Strict cost controls need to be implemented in the system to solve the problem.  Unfortunately, the Obama health care plan does almost nothing to control costs, which is the primary reason his healthcare plan is an abomination.

These three categories make up a massive portion of the overall budget.  Without a permanent fix, the United State will eventually go bankrupt.  Earmarks are the first step, but we cannot stop there.

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Monday, November 15, 2010 - 6:30pm

Rangel Can't Face the Heat

Corrupt Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) decided to walk out of his own ethics trial today, claiming he hasn't had enough time to prepare his defense.  Rangel was charged months ago with 13 separate allegations, but since his original defense team quit, he thinks he deserves time to raise money for new lawyers.

He has already spent an astonishing $2 million to defend himself against the charges.  Apparently, he didn't think to save just a little bit of that money to last through the whole legal process.

Rangel also rambled about his "fifty years" of public service.  This is a classic line shared by every politician when they get in trouble.  Rather than accept reality that they're only helping themselves by capturing a powerful and well-paying job, Washington Congressman pretend they're actually helping society by holding the political office in the first place.

Despite spending hoards of cash and making a mockery of the American political system, 80-year old Charles Rangel has continually refused to resign.  He was booted from the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee, but he is still clinging to the congressional seat he's held for the last thirty years.

Like the rest of his pathetic, political career, Rangel is grandstanding in a futile attempt to make himself look better.  It will not be effective.  The ethics committee will continue on without him and will figure out what everyone else already knows:  that Charlie Rangel is as guilty as the day is long.  The only injustice is that the injustice is that he's not put behind bars.

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Sunday, November 14, 2010 - 9:45pm

Arizona Approves Marijuana

Voters in the State of Arizona accepted the legalization of medical marijuana after an extremely close tally. By a margin of only 4,400 out of the 1.7 million ballots cast, the measure passed and will now go into effect on November 29th.  Arizona becomes the fifteenth state to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes and draws further attention to an issue that continues to win public support.

The supporters of the proposition have an ultimate goal of legalizing all marijuana possession and use across the country.  If they made that statement twenty years ago, you would think their goal was crazy.  However, as pot smoking becomes more mainstream, people are finding it more acceptable for the drug to be legal.

I would argue that marijuana falls under the category of victim-less crime and personal use in the privacy of your home should not be punished in any way, shape, or form.  Wasting government resources to run around chasing and prosecuting pot-heads is pointless.  That principle applies to other recreational drugs as well.  If someone wants to smoke a few doobies in their basement, we should not bother be concerned.

Our court system needs to concentrate on investigating and prosecuting violent criminals and keeping them locked up for as long as the humanly possible.  American jails are overcrowded and the courts are completely jammed.  We need to prioritize and focus on real crimes.  Pot smoking is not one of them.

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 - 10:00pm

Old Guard Stays Put

Fighting for leadership in the House probably would've been good for the Democrats, but they've instead decided to take the easy way out and keep Nancy Pelosi (CA) as Minority Leader and Steny Hoyer (MD) as Minority Whip.  Since there is one more slot in the majority role, the liberals created a new role for Rep. James Clyburn (SC).  The former Majority Whip will now be an "Assistant Leader" and assume the number three position.  Pelosi was previously Speaker, while Hoyer was previously the Majority Leader.

Inventing a new position for Clyburn is not the flaw in this process.  The mistake is keeping the same stiffs in leadership that were there before.  Pelosi and Hoyer are clowns.  Besides the fact that they have zero leadership skills, they also presided over the worst defeat of House members in decades.  Upon gaining control of Congress in 2006, the two ignored pleas to govern from the middle and instead pushed through legislation of the extreme left.  While the GOP held the House for the previous twelve years, the Democrats under Pelosi and Hoyer couldn't even hold it for half that length of time.

Without a real leader on the left side of the fence, the Democrats are likely to hemorrhage more seats when the calendar reaches November 6, 2012.  Not only have they made it more difficult for Congressional Democrats to get elected in two years, they've also made President Barack Obama's bid for a second term more challenging.

A better solution would've been for all three former majority "leaders" to step down, admit failure, and allow two or three other moderate members from their party to assume minority control.  They surely could not do any worse than Pelosi and Hoyer.  A move to the middle is desperately needed and the old guard is not going to take us there.  The sooner the other Dems figure that out, the better the party will be in the long-run.

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Friday, November 12, 2010 - 11:59pm

Ron Paul Run Amok

With Republicans set to take over control of the House, a number of GOP Congressman will assume leadership roles in many subcommittees.  Among those is one for domestic monetary policy.  Although the group has focused their efforts on commemorative coins in the past, their new half-baked, crackpot chairman has decided to concentrate on destroying Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve.

Ron Paul (R-TX) has been on a mission for years to eliminate the Fed.  His conspiracy theory rhetoric on monetary issues has created a cult-like following over the years for him, despite the fact that he has zero background or experience in anything related to finance, banking, or economics.  Mr. Paul has been a physician and a politician, but that hasn't stopped him from professing an expert opinion on our nation's financial system.

Congressman Paul seems to believe that Fed policy was the sole reason for the market collapse of two years ago.  It played a part, but Paul conveniently forgets that his own colleagues were the primary culprits of the last recession.  It was Congress who deregulated the system and pressured Fannie and Freddie to lend more money to people who couldn't pay.  It was Wall Street that took the lack of regulation and ran with it, developing synthetic instruments that would eventually blow up.

In the world of Ron Paul, the United States would go back to the gold standard, even though such a foolish change would push the country into massive deflation.

If Ron Paul wants to chair a subcommittee, it should be in the field of medicine, where his true skill lies. Placing him in charge of anything related to monetary policy is a huge mistake.  He's clueless on the topic.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010 - 10:55pm

Miller Disputing Every Ballot

Lisa Murkowski has received 89 percent of the write-in ballots thus far in Alaska's race for Senate.  Tea-party lunatic Joe Miller, who has already effectively lost, is contesting everything possible in an attempt to narrow the lead.  There are more than 83,000 ballots that voted for write-in candidates versus Miller's 69,000 total, which means if Murkowski's percentage holds, she'll have more than enough to declare victory.

Capturing nearly ninety percent means that Senator Murkowski is projected to win the Alaska Senate election by about 4,000 votes.  Joe Miller can protest all he wants with his expansive legal team, but he's not even close to pulling off the upset.  He needs a much lower number of write-ins to go Lisa Murkowski's way to make up the ground.

At this point, Miller would be wise to concede the race.  Despite beating Murkowski the first time in the Republican primary, he clearly wasn't as lucky the second time around.  With his thug bodyguards detaining journalists, his refusal to talk to the media, and his ethics violation in a past job, he has made far too many mistakes to win.  Murkowski may be the quintessential establishment candidate, but considering how extreme Miller's ideas were about Alaska, it's best she came out on top.

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Tuesday, November 9, 2010 - 9:42pm

Global Controversy Continues

The Federal Reserve's decision to buy $600 billion in Treasury bonds is upsetting a number of countries and the list is growing.  China, Germany, Russia, Japan, and others have joined the chorus of criticism about the move, arguing (correctly) that it will devalue the U.S. dollar and create a disadvantage on trade balances.

By purchasing Treasuries with money that didn't previously exist, the Fed is effectively printing money.  They don't actually run over to the printing press and crank out $600 billion.  Instead, in this modern world, they simply hit a few keystrokes on a computer and create the money out of thin air.

This quantitative easing measure (QE2) will expand the Federal Reserve's balance sheet and flood the system with new dollars.  The positives are an increase in the price of stocks and houses, plus a depreciating currency, which lowers costs for American manufacturers.  The negative is the potential for rampant inflation.

A home country generally prefer their currency weak to help provide an equitable trade balance.  This is why the United States has been harping on China to allow their currency to trade freely.  It is well known that the Chinese yuan is worth significantly more than the country maintains.  However, China knows their exports will benefit with an undervalued currency.

By printing money and devaluing the dollar, the United States government is.....wait for it......hypocrites!!! 

You can't go around condemning other nations for artificially keeping their currency weak when you're doing the exact same thing.  Ben Bernanke will argue that his job is to create sustainable growth in the American economy, but his job is also to control inflation.  With an additional $600 billion being pumped into the economy, inflation won't be far behind.

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Monday, November 8, 2010 - 8:58pm

Christie Calls Out Gregory

Governor Chris Christie (NJ-R) appeared on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday and quickly proceeded to aggravate the host, David Gregory, by calling him an advocate for liberals.  Gregory referred to next year's tax structure as "tax cuts" as opposed to maintaining the current system when asking the Governor his opinion.  Christie took issue with his characterization, stating that Congress was looking to raise taxes.

The point seems trivial now, but it won't be when everyone's paycheck gets smaller in two months.  Personal income, dividends, and capital gains taxes are all going higher in 2012 if Congress does nothing.  What they need to vote on is whether to keep tax policy the same or increase it.  That sounds like a tax hike to me.

The mainstream media is perceived to be liberal because of questions like David Gregory's.  If you watch CNN, Fox or NBC long enough, you'll notice the rigged nature of these interviews.  It's almost impossible to find a real, unbiased journalist these days as objectivity has taken a back seat to gotcha-style politics.

The tax debate is a winning issue for the conservatives.  The vast majority of Americans don't want to see their income go down come January.  The Democrats could've owned this topic and passed legislation months ago, but they dropped the ball and handed the GOP the clinching hand on a silver platter. 

When they finally do decide to continue the tax structure, the Republicans will be taking credit for it.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 - 9:30pm

Predator Drones in Yemen

In the increasingly expanding drone war, the United States has deployed their automated killing machines to the Arabic nation of Yemen in a supposed attempt to find al-Qaeda operatives.  Senior government officials admitted that the unmanned predators have been conducting surveillance in the country for several months, although they have not fired on any unsuspecting targets.  The Americans claim they have authority to use lethal force, but that has yet to be confirmed by Yemeni government representatives.

In addition, the Obama administration is supplying the unstable country with attack helicopters, equipment, and other weaponry.  The Pentagon will actually double to $250 million the amount of arms they sell to Yemen by next year.  The predator drones are only part of the story as the U.S. has sent teams of CIA agents and elite military units in what appears to be a major build-up in personnel.

The new front in the so-called war on terror represents at least the fourth country where the U.S. is very active. They're at war with Iraq and Afghanistan, firing drone missiles all over Pakistan, and are about to shoot up Yemen.  Who knows what they're doing in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.  Where will it stop?

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 - 11:19pm

Undecided in Alaska

The election may be over, but the fighting continues in Alaska where Lisa Murkowski and Joe Miller prepare of the next round of counting ballots.  Write-in votes defeated the tea-bagger Miller by a 41-34% tally, but those ballots were not necessarily for Lisa Murkowski.  Although the count won't start until next week, the legal battle is already under way.  Each candidate is lead by a team of attorneys that are ready to challenge and/or defend each questionable vote.

A total of 83,201 ballots were designated to a write-in candidate, presumably for Murkowski, while Miller received 69,762.  In addition, more than 37,500 absentee ballots have yet to be tallied up.  However, the current margin of nearly seven percent should be more than enough for Senator Murkowski to hold the seat.

This process will take a couple weeks to play out, but most people, myself included, expect Miller to lose. His defeat would mark the third major tea-party candidate to lose a Senate race. 

While crazies like Miller seem to do well in specific House districts with heavy demographics in their favor, the minute you put them in a statewide election, they get beaten.  This should be a warning to the GOP not to follow the extremists off the cliff.  Their influence only goes so far.

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Friday, November 5, 2010 - 9:55pm

Step Aside Nancy

After failing miserably in her role as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi is now setting her sights on minority leader.  Much like everyone else inside Washington beltway, the liberal refuses to relinquish her grip on power.  Fellow progressives had hoped she would step aside and allow someone more, um, competent to run in her place, but good ole Nancy and her allies would have none of that talk. Republicans, on the other hand, were absolutely ecstatic at the notion.

Nobody has actually stepped up to challenge Pelosi for the seat, so she might actually win the caucus and further destroy the Democratic party.  Even the clowns at MoveOn.org support her candidacy, arguing that progressives should be even more liberal and stay far away from governing from the center.

Democrats must have slept through Tuesday night's election and didn't get the memo that Americans don't want an extreme liberal platform.  They don't want a radical conservative agenda either, which is why far right nutjobs like Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Joe Miller all lost.  Most people in this country are in the political middle and any movement too far to one side or the other typically results in an election defeat.

When you lose 60+ seats because your party has no clear message and is dysfunctional and directionless, it's time to get out of the way and nominate someone with a clue.  Nancy Pelosi has been a dreadful House Speaker and the Democrats need to stand up and stop her from taking any leadership position.

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Thussday, November 4, 2010 - 8:00pm

GOP May Overplay Hand

It didn't take long for the Republicans to declare they have a mandate to enact all sorts of change after crushing the Democrats in the mid-term elections.  Rather than reach across the aisle to work with their counterparts (as voters want), they are vowing to block President Obama's entire agenda and have their eyes set on overturning the recently passed healthcare billed, dubbed Obamacare.

The presumed next Speaker of the House, John Boehner, announced that the American people voted for a smaller, less costly government and that the GOP would do just that.  The problem is that Republicans created one of the largest governments in history when they controlled the White House and Congress for the first six years of the Bush presidency.  Voters have quickly forgotten that Bush and a Republican-led Congress took a $236 billion budget surplus and turned it into (at the time) the largest deficit ever in the U.S.

In the last six months of George Bush's presidency, he took his self-created deficit from $450 billion to $1.2 trillion with bailouts for Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Citigroup, and the like.  Somehow the GOP succeeded in constructing the bogus argument that they'll make government smaller and more accountable to the people.

The bottom-line is that Republicans are no more in favor of a limited government than Democrats.  They talk a great game, but at the end of the day they will not cut spending in any significant manner whatsoever. History has proven it over and over again.  Reagan's government was much larger than Carter's, Bush's was bigger than Clinton's, and Obama is following the same exact trend relative to his predecessor.

When the Democrats swept to power, they failed to govern from the middle.  They instead saw an opportunity to push through a liberal agenda.  Now that Republicans have gained some power, it looks like they're already making the same mistake.  They need to be careful how much of their own platform they try to shove through the system.

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Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - 11:00pm

GOP Wins House...Democrats Keep Senate!

The voters have spoken and have turned clearly to the right.  At this hour, it looks like Republicans will gain around 65 seats in the House of Representatives and take control of the chamber.  The GOP needed only 39 seats to claim victory and they will comfortably surpass that figure.  According to Nate Silver's political calculus, the new House projects to approximately 244 Republicans and 191 Democrats.

Conservatives will also pick up a number of seats in the Senate, but will fall short of the ten they needed to seize power.  With surprising strength by Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, Michael Bennet in Colorado, and Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois, the Democrats are currently doing far better than expectations.  Democrats were projected to lose eight seats, but may escape with only a loss of five or six positions.

The above-mentioned races may take some time to determine a winner, but both parties can take something positive out of tonight's mid-terms.  Conservatives won the vast majority of the contested races, but liberals appear likely to hold the Senate with some room to spare.  Still to come are close elections in Nevada, Washington, California, and Alaska.  Harry Reid is neck and neck with Sharron Angle in exit polls, which means that race may not be determined until the morning.

The tea party movement has been a mixed bag thus far.  Rand Paul and Marco Rubio stormed to victory, while Christine O'Donnell and Tom Tancredo failed miserably.  They've done very well in House races, but are having a more difficult time on a statewide level.  When the results come in for Joe Miller and Sharron Angle, it will go a long way in determining how the tea-baggers fared.

While Republicans won the night quite handily, they will still enter 2012 in control of only one chamber of Congress.  Democrats continue to run the White House and the Senate.  Fortunately, the overall picture in Washington will be more balanced, with neither party having a filibuster-proof majority.

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Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - 8:10pm

Paul Wins, O'Donnell Loses

Rand Paul (R), son of Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) will be your next junior Senator from the State of Kentucky.  He easily defeated Jack Conway (D), despite opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and being caught in a controversy over tying up a woman in some sort of hazing incident in college.  Early results show Paul winning by double-digits.

Crazy, witch-lady Christine O'Donnell (R) has been crushed by Christopher Coons (D) by a healthy margin in Delaware.  A seat that conservatives could've captured with a strong, moderate candidate falls to another Democrat.  If the Senate does move to 50/50, the GOP will look back at this race as an opportunity lost.

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Monday, November 1, 2010 - 7:45pm

Can Democrats Hold the Senate?

We already know that Republicans will take control of the House, with expectations ranging from a gain of 45 - 65 seats after tomorrow's election.  The real drama is the Senate, where the GOP needs to pick up a net ten races.  According to both RealClearPolitics and Nate Silver's mathematical FiveThirtyEight blog, the current expectation is for an eight seat gain, which would keep Democrats in control with 51 votes.

However, a swing of just two close races and the conservative could take back the Senate.  A few places where we could see an upset are Dino Rossi (R) vs. Patty Murray (D) in Washington, Carly Fiorina (R) vs. Barbara Boxer (D) in California, and John Raese (R) vs. Joe Manchin (D) in West Virginia.  Although the Democrat is ahead in all three races, the average margin is five percent or less in each.  This also presumes that Republicans win every race they currently lead, which includes crazy Sharron Angle's tenuous edge over Harry Reid in Nevada and Ken Buck's advantage over Michael Bennet in Colorado.

Going against the GOP is Christine O'Donnell's dysfunctional campaign in Delaware.  What could've been a plus in the neocon column is now considered a lost cause due to nominating an extremely weak candidate.

I would predict that Barbara Boxer wins in California over Fiorina, as she has held a steady lead for the last few months in a very blue state.  That leaves Washington and West Virginia.  In Washington, Murray is ahead by less than one percent as Rossi has narrowed the gap in the last few weeks.  His candidacy has gained momentum and some polls show him in the lead.  I could see victory there for the GOP.

West Virginia, on the other hand, will be more difficult to capture.  Joe Manchin holds a 4.5% spread over his opponent and the only polls showing Raese ahead in the last two weeks are Rasmussen and FoxNews, two heavily conservative-leaning pollsters.

If every other election holds true to form and the three listed above go as predicted, the Senate will be equally divided at 50/50, with Vice President Joe Biden casting the deciding vote in favor of the left. 

Gridlock, here we come!

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